Music & the Entertainment Economy

Music funding in Canada is essential for at least two reasons. First, Canadian artists experience heightened competition on their own home turf as a result of close proximity to the American border. Second, unlike in Europe and the U.S. where musicians can perform in many cities without needing to travel far, the geographical distance between [...]

Nashville, Tennessee, better known as Music City USA, is a mid-sized American city that has been historically grounded in the music and entertainment business for over 90 years. The origins of Nashville’s music economy can be traced back to late 1920s and the WSM radio station. In the beginning the station’s successful barn dance program, [...]

Last week, Tyler Cowen asked: “What are the least bohemian cities in the world?”  He went on to wonder whether Richard Florida had some kind of bohemian index. Richard, of course, does.  It measures the concentration of professional artists living in each U.S. and Canadian metro area.  Or, at least, the concentration of people who [...]

This post was co-authored with Ian Swain In his Economix column earlier this month, Edward Glaeser discussed the economic outlook for Atlanta.  He was generally optimistic, using some of the economic geographer’s standard tools in his analysis: Atlanta is its region’s largest urban agglomeration, its politics are pro-business, and a high percentage of its population [...]

Aaron Renn, the Urbanophile, has a brilliant post about how Detroit could embrace its industrial ruins.  I agree with just about everything he says in it.  Here are the key ideas: What if instead of spending a huge amount of money to try to save one building, the city found a little bit of money [...]

A new coffee shop just opened up in Toronto. It caught the attention of our colleague Dan Silver, and we had an email discussion about the name Cloud Free Agent Espresso Bar. Cloud is a tastefully appointed coffee bar with what sounds like great food and drink. Cloud is also very explicit about its aim [...]